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German Neo-Nazi party open squatted social centre

category international | eu | other press author Thursday July 23, 2009 00:40author by hogworts - ( = iosaf )

The site of the former Hotel Gerhus in the village of Fassberg in the German state of Lower Saxony is now squatted by a neoNazi group loyal to the far-right German NPD deputy leader Jürgen Rieger. Although the building is in receivership, and despite the little village never reportedly having had the pleasure of a squat or social centre before, the 8000 metre squared piece of real estate is now breaking news in the German language. A mostly ignored press statement issued by Rieger last Friday announced his activists would occupy the premises after a leasing deal went sour (for the nazi's) & they felt they were being ripped off by someone in the estate agents' sector for offering them the space. Accordingly in the last 24 hours German NeoNazi's have indeed occupied the site - with the intention of turning the 70+ plus bedroomed building into a "training, educational & political revival" centre.

This may probably mean a lot more than showing vids, cooking stew, growing soya or trying trapeze. It might indeed meaning decorating the garden with gnomes(*) giving Hitler salutes and denying the Holocaust 24 hours a day 7 days a week or as they generally do these days simply talk about the efficiency of ovens over 24 hours a day and 7 days a week without going into the systematic denial of civil and human rights of many many millions of Europeans through the the 1930's and 1940's who were systematically stripped of their citizenship, educational qualifications, rights to residency, rights to travel, rights to movement, rights to marry unhindered and then put without trial to slave labour.

- didn't even mention IBM or tattoos in that.

Whereas many of us will wonder at the NPD using such tactics, I'd simply reflect on the irony that the accepted European squatting symbol has never really been comfortably explained beyond its runic roots in Nazi symbolism. Although of course until the events of the last 24 hours not many of us would have felt the need to quibble on the fine points of semiotic etymology (if such a category may exist seperately from teleology).

Like we know a squat is a squat - don't we?
& we know a social centre is a social centre?
& we know that little rune in its circle is "ours" & isn't for turning by the fascists & Nazi's?

Coz they're not going to go squatting buildings and usurping, invading, entering without by or leave on our sociological and psychological territory of rebellion, autonomy, indepedence, self-sufficiency & especially not in modern Germany where most of Europe's decent squats are to be found.

they're not entering un-invited on our patch - are they? (**)

sources in [German language] ::
http://www.zeit.de/online/2009/30/neonazis-npd-rieger-i...age=2
http://www.welt.de/hamburg/article4171680/Neonazi-Hotel....html
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/h5U388/2976251/Neonazis-bese....html
http://www1.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/landhotel1....html
http://www.sn-online.de/content/view/full/207694

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related back articles on the contemporary German NeoNazi movement and its irony :

"Spooky German mainstreet viral Racism : Pizza & Hitler a Miscellany"
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/83942
"Burning Books - the Pretzien "Bücherverbrennung""
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81226
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(*) explanatory note on the sarcastic references to gnomes giving Hitler salutes in the introduction for those readers who may not be abreast of recent German State prosecutions under the laws meant to contain Nazi-ism and its revival :
"Nazi-salute gnome 'not illegal' " : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8163918.stm

(**) if you go research the squat symbol on the internet, you'll find that dismal post-wikipedian "citation needed" message. Which generally indicates either us type of people who put encyclopedias together haven't made up our mind about it or worse it's escaped our attention alltogether. So perhaps the Nazi's are just about to get their symbol back........Maybe we need a new one.......Or just let's hope the cops evict them sharpish???

Comments (5 of 5)

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author by Againstpublication date Thu Jul 23, 2009 13:11author address author phone

NPD is nothing comparing to what you can find in England and East Europe. Besides in Germany there are strong anti-racist organizations and anarcho-communist movements. \

I have a friend from Saxony (Germany). Every time the nazis gather for protest in a small town, the rest of the people ring the bells of the local church in order to annoy them. Go do that in England and you will end up beaten up.

author by hogworts - ( iosaf )publication date Thu Jul 23, 2009 21:30author address author phone

The last commentator quite properly invites us to compare & contrast the German NPD with other neoNazi and far-right political groups & I presume with particular attention to social organisation and promotional strategies.

As we all know the BNP saw Andrew Bron elected as MEP for the UK Yorkshire and Humber region constituency with 9.8% of the vote. & as we all know the BNP sit with the NPD and are completely affiliated. I worked for the Church of England during a period of four years in the 1990's and remember how church bells throughout England went mostly un-heeded and could probably be rated at the very bottom of a list of community awareness behind the sound of unwelcome police sirens and even the ever tantalising ice cream van. Nobody would care if the bells were ringing in the local churches.

The 2001 Bradford race riots which occured just after the race riots in Burnley and Oldham (all 3 cities in the current BNP EU constituency) were as we know orchestrated by what was understood as the NF and a variety of skinhead groups. We of course also know that these were and are the people who canvassed for the BNP. Indeed I'd remind readers that a complete list of their IP's can be perused with particular interest to the Irish connections at this link :-
"Analysis of Irish involvement in neo Nazi "B&H" site" http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88985

Those riots were, I maintain & warn, the final articulation of what the fascists, neo-nazi's and third positionists saw as counter-productive to their longer term political and social goals.

They are, loathe as I am to admit, not stupid through their ranks and to their cores nor are they to be understood now through only localised national interpretative filters. What works now in Germany may work elsewhere soon - what worked in the UK in 2001 undoubtedly is being tried elsewhere now.

I'd finish for the moment by saying :-

:=: what is most to be feared is not the violent fash or neo-nazi (bearing in mind the recent publication of the Spanish state report on near impunity for race attacks, desecrations and neo-Nazi activity roganised from Valencia for the whole Iberian peninsula c/f http://www.movimientocontralaintolerancia.com/download/...9.zip http://www.accio-popular.org/

:=: nor what is most to be feared is the glib publicity exercises of the European far-right seeking legitimacy.

but rather -

:+: the idea that they could get social centres together and build an underground conscienceness based on supposedly self-assertive or autonomous or proactive values which are anti-system and traditionally anti-capitalist.

Coz if we let them into that space - we've given them the 21st century's Hitler youth.

Surely none of you think every hitler youth member was a skinhead?

author by hogworts - (iosaf)publication date Sat Aug 01, 2009 20:36author address author phone

Little Fassberg is exerting magnetic fields of attracting and repulsion these last ten days. NeoNazi's are happily planning their paint jobs and gigs and educational sessions suitable for a wide range of hitler youth type such as those who may make future pontiffs and the others who are just in it for the uncommonly cute skingirls, no smoking & chance not to be thought gay.

oh yes.

But where there are nazis and fascists not long does it take for their opponents (us I believe) to show up and yell slogans and scrawl graffiti.

Accordingly as the German law court dealing with an eviciton request went through the complex legal reasons for why the nazi's are in the hotel as "squatters", numerous protests were announced a bit of stir was noted which it is reported in mainstream German commercial press has extended to shots being fired (at whom i'm not sure nor by whom) and 24/7 police surveillance. Of course they would be new eastern German police lot who after the Pretzien summer solstice book burning of Anne Frank's diary got night classes on dealing with nazi's and getting a better idea if indeed they share a patrol car with one.

an opinion piece from last week in German on Germany Indymedia http://de.indymedia.org/2009/07/257004.shtml

a report from Speigel in English
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,6387....html

author by Sven Olsen.publication date Sat Aug 01, 2009 21:48author address author phone

Most germans were caught up in beinng called the "Master Race,"

Very few Scientfically well educated scientific Germans believed it.
A lot did.

When and Hamburg Berlin and and Dusseldorff were reduced to rubble..we learned our lesson

By the logic of the Nazis...the Chinese are the master race..

(The Chinese have the biggest heads and the World's highest IQs )

author by lost translationspublication date Fri Aug 14, 2009 19:57author address author phone

English Nazi Slogans Are Legal, German Court Rules

Using Nazi symbols and slogans is a punishable crime in Germany. But now neo-Nazis may have more leeway after a federal German court ruled that slogans are not illegal if they are translated into another language.

Is a Nazi slogan still a Nazi slogan if it is uttered in English instead of German?

Not necessarily -- at least according to Germany's Federal Court of Justice. In a landmark decision Thursday, the Karlsruhe-based court ruled that using Nazi slogans translated into a language other than German would not, in general, be a punishable crime. The ruling is linked to a case in which a neo-Nazi was prosecuted and fined €4,200 ($6,000) in 2005 for distributing clothing and merchandising bearing the slogan "Blood and Honour," written in English. With the ruling, the court overturned the verdict against the neo-Nazi, who was not named, but said it could still be possible to prosecute him under other laws relating to right-wing extremism.

more : "Lost in Translation" news from Spiegel's English website : http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,6422....html

The group "Blood and Honour" was founded in Texas in the 1980's spellt (spelled) without a "U" as "honor". It was declared muribund by the "top ten neo-nazi" Tom Metzger in the last decade but the recipe of violence & skinhead aesthetic undoubtedly caught the imagination and loyalty of many neo-Nazi's in Europe where it has been criminalised in Germany, Austria and most recently the Spanish state as a criminal organisation unquestionably involved in conspiracy to murder and acts of murder.


http://www.indymedia.ie/article/93270

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